EP Review: Alice Boman – ‘EP II’

EPs are tricky to get right because of their shortness – they must grab you right from the first song.  A great EP can set a band up with brilliant momentum for an impressive full-length LP (Peace’s EP Delicious being the most obvious recent example), whereas an average one with a lukewarm reaction can somewhat slow down proceedings.  However, because it’s usually the LP on which the band is widely judged, it’s the case more and more these days that artists are honing their craft through multiple EPs in order to make the record more refined (see Wolf Alice, Bombay Bicycle Club etc.), and Swedish singer-songwriter, Alice Boman, falls into this category.  Her first EP, ‘Skisser’ (Swedish for ‘sketches’), was a very pleasant, organic-sounding work which left me feeling that Boman could have quite easily had a career writing hymns if she wasn’t doing love songs.  The lyrics were moving, if a little basic (bearing in mind English is probably not her first language), and the music satisfying and at times beautiful, but not in any way challenging or particularly intriguing.

On her second EP, simply entitled ‘EP II’ and newly released last month, she pushes out the boat in terms of instrumentation while keeping the same beauty-through-simplicity that made ‘Skisser’ such a fragile and heart-rending listen.  Opener ‘What’, rightly raved about on BBC 6 Music, is ethereal and echoic to the point of sounding like the piano was recorded underwater; Boman reaches out to the one she loves with uncertainty over whether her love is requited, and her incredibly simple lyrics allow the music to speak for itself.  Unlike Skisser’s opener, this track grabs you, carries you along on its heavenly wave, and places you into second track ‘Over’ – a myriad of swelling, wobbly organ-like synths with Boman’s delicate tones sitting comfortably in the middle of it all. ‘Burns’ takes the fragility to another level with tinkling piano before it blooms into a larger instrumentation, giving an element of grandeur to her music so far unseen.

The EP peters out a little after the halfway mark, ‘Be Mine’ and ‘Lead Me’ –  a lo-fi Mumfordsy ballad and slightly uninteresting country-inspired stroll respectively.  The EP’s closer, ‘All Eyes on You’, sounds a little tired compared to the surprising chord jumps of ‘What’, and the simplicity has gone a little bit. The lo-fi quality becomes a little tiresome, and you feel that perhaps putting ‘Over’ at the end would serve the EP better; such is the importance of the opening and closing tracks on any record. Overall, though, it’s a calming and very enjoyable listen – a definite improvement from ‘Skisser’.  It will be very interesting to see what a full-length album brings, if it comes.

 

Ciaran McQueen

 

Mari Lane

Mari Lane

Editor, London. Likes: Kathleen Hanna, 6Music, live music in the sunshine. Dislikes: Sexism, pineapples, the misuse of apostrophes.